


Prompt: Cream and Lace

by EssayOfThoughts



Series: MCU Maximoff Oneshots [117]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-28 04:11:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10823493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: Pepper considers, sips her coffee. Watches the girl opposite her slowly starting to relax even though her eyes are clearly sleepless, her hair is a mess of curls, a riot of knots, twisting scarlet out of the fingers of one hand.“Do you feel any remorse?”





	Prompt: Cream and Lace

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lucdarling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucdarling/gifts).



> Written for a prompt on my tumblr, "Wanda & Pepper Potts, cream and lace", for lucdarling.

**i.**    
“I know what you did to his head,” Potts says.

She’s sat opposite Wanda in the little cafe, bodyguard left by the door like a coat on a peg. Her tiny cup of coffee is held delicately in one hand, but for all this woman’s delicacy, Wanda knows she is not one to cross. She manages to control Tony Stark, after all.

“To Tony,” Potts specifies. “I know you did _something_  to the rest of the team, but I _know_  what you did to Tony.”

Wanda stays silent - there is not purpose to speaking right now.

“Do you know what you did to them?” Pepper asks. There could be blame in her question, were she any other, but she is not and it is simply a particularly incisive question. “Did you care?”

Wanda shrugs. In her hands she turns her cup of herbal tea. “My brother and I,” she says, and it is hard, so hard not to choke on the word of _brother._  She shakes her head, clears her thoughts. “We did not care. We were too focussed on our vengeance to care for anything but finally getting it. We had spent all our lives wishing for it.”

 

* * *

 

 **ii.**  
Pepper sips her coffee - strong, dark, as it has to be on days she’s dealing with Tony at his worst or a stranger she doesn’t yet know how to read. She half-thinks that today is going to end up including both. 

The girl opposite her looks lost and alone and small, no inkling of the bloody power in her veins. She’s seen the footage of what she can do - what JARVIS had eked from the computers in the castle, the camera feeds from Tony’s suit, replays that JARVIS-voiced Vision had given at the base, she knows this girl is not nearly as weak and small and tired as she looks right now.

But, she supposes, that is what grief can do to a person. Take away life and energy not just from the lost but from the living too.

Pepper sets her cup back on it’s saucer, sits up a little more and gives Wanda Maximoff her full attention.

“Tell me about your vengeance,” she says gently.

 

* * *

 

 **iii.**  
There is hate in Wanda Maximoff’s tone as she speaks of Tony, hate and anger and fury, and a deep-burning rage that has not lessened, not with her brother’s death nor her decision to give up her vengeance. 

She speaks of a shell, of the streets, of having none to trust but her brother and their shared desire for justice, justice which morphed to vengeance when they saw a world in which justice would never happen. They protested, they fought, they failed. They went to the castle.

“We did not know them for what they were,” Wanda Maximoff admits. “But vengeance was our driving goal.”

 

* * *

 

 **iv.**  
It is easy to speak as Potts listens. Wanda can see her mind turning, see small flashes of anger dart across her mind as bright as her hair. She sees Potts look down at her cup and it takes the merest movement of her hand to have scarlet sending over the cafetiere and the delicate little jug of cream.

Potts nods a momentary thanks and they continue.

 

* * *

 

 **v.**  
“So no,” Wanda Maximoff says to Pepper. “I do not know what I did to their minds, only what I intended. No, I did not care. My brother and I had our vengeance and that came before all things.”

“All?” Pepper asks.

Wanda considers, tilts her head. “Almost all,” she says. “Ultron intended to destroy the world, the world and everyone in it. That was not...” she shakes her head. “That came before vengeance.”

Pepper considers, sips her coffee. Watches the girl opposite her slowly starting to relax even though her eyes are clearly sleepless, her hair is a mess of curls, a riot of knots, twisting scarlet out of the fingers of one hand.

“Do you feel any remorse?”

 

* * *

 

 **vi.**  
_Remorse,_  Wanda thinks. _We never had space for remorse._

“Not remorse,” Wanda says. “But guilt.” She is silent for long moments, staring at her cup. “Because of us, Ultron was made. Because of us, Johannesburg was wrecked. Because of us, the world was almost destroyed, because of _me_ my _home_  is gone, my _brother.”_  Her shoulders are shaking and Potts carefully reaches across to top up her cup.

Wanda nods her thanks when her shoulders stop shaking.

“Because of me all of this could have been gone. Because of me and my powers and my vengeance.” She looks up at Potts and can feel the scarlet glowing in her eyes, in her tears. “Because we could _think_  for vengeance but not for consequences. Because we thought consequences didn’t matter.” She swallows, curls her shoulders in, dips her head. “Because of me my brother is dead.”

“You have my condolences,” Potts says, and is waved off by a scarlet-edged hand. “You have my condolences,” she repeats. “Because you and your brother tried to make amends for all that you did and in doing so...” her words trail off.

 

* * *

 

 **vii.**  
There is silence. Wanda keeps her gaze fixed on the fine white lace that covers the black leather of Pepper’s heels.

“I know what you did to Tony,” Pepper says. “Now know _why._ _”_ A pause, a moment’s peace. “Tony may not have sold that bomb, Obie may have, before we learned what he was. Or maybe Tony did sell it, not knowing what it would be used for. It would not be the first time a government has meddled where it wasn’t wanted.”

Pepper watches Wanda Maximoff, small and grieving and guilty in her chair. 

“I know what you did to Tony. I think you have taken your vengeance. I think you have paid for that vengeance, far more than you should have ever had to.” Pepper pauses, waits for Wanda to glance up from her shoes. “I think,” she says, tone very _very_  clear, “That this is over. No vengeance for you, no more unknown damage done by him. I will keep him making amends,” Pepper promises. “And you will continue to make amends. You will see that no reckless action sees people dead as your brother is.

“You are even,” Pepper says.

 

* * *

 

 **viii.**  
Wanda looks more closely at Pepper Potts. Not her shining mind, coloured in cream and gold and the red of her hair, patterned in lace and knotwork, shimmering with the pale and certain fire of her intelligence, but at the woman. Tired and besuited, hair clipped back precisely, every part of her ensemble ordered down to the minutest part.

Her eyes are as certain and solid as stone.

“Yes,” Wanda says. “And even if we were not... I do not think I could, without Pietro.”

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave comments!


End file.
